


Hallways of the Mind

by FireOpal (Raven_At_The_Writing_Desk)



Series: Random Cayrd and Frias [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:09:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_At_The_Writing_Desk/pseuds/FireOpal
Summary: Cayrd gets sucked into the mind of the ship.





	Hallways of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short story based on the prompt, "He had lived his entire life in this house, but he was standing in a hallway he had never seen before."

Cayrd scratched his coarse, red beard as he stared down the hallway before him. He’d been on this ship now for close to ten years, and he couldn’t quite remember where he was just now. Granted there were parts of the ship he didn’t frequent, like the engine rooms, but he’d been on his way to the recreation deck, he knew that route stumbling drunk. How had he gotten lost?

He turned around to go back the way he came and saw that it was also unfamiliar. He narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t the first time something weird happened. It was a weird ship. Still, He’d learned not to trust strange occurrences here. Last time, the shadows had come alive and started eating crew members.

He pulled out his com and tried reaching anyone. No luck. It could be chalked up to most of the few people he trusted to reach out too were also drunks and probably asleep or in their cups. Cayrd somehow doubted that. He reached out to the one person who would know if the ship was being screwy.

Riel picked, up.

  
“Roewing?” Riel’s voice sounded distant and confused.

“Ship’s acting up again,” Cayrd said simply into the com. There was a pause and the sound of Riel moving around.

  
“Describe ‘acting up’,” Riel sounded more alert. Cayrd looked around the hall looking for anything distinguishing.

  
“Ahm in a hall, with no markings, it goes on forever in both directions. Ah don’t know how Ah got here or where ‘here’ is.” Cayrd tapped a wall and heard the sound of metal under his knuckles. “Seems real though.”  
“You sure you’re still on the ship?” Riel asked.

“Ah haven’t left it. Unless Ah fell through a wormhole on mah way to the recreation deck.” Cayrd leaned on the wall keeping an eye open. He didn’t trust the place to stay calm even if it seemed that way right now.

“You’re on the internal map,” Riel confirmed. “But you’re not moving.” There was a pause again. “I’m going to try something. Try to relax.”

Cayrd raised a bushy eyebrow at his com, then felt an amazing pressure in his skull, like something was trying to crawl into it. He fell to his knees holding his head and growling at the building pressure.

“Riel!” He screamed, his ears popped, then it stopped. Cayrd fell to his side, tears streaming from his eyes, panting. He managed to get his com to his mouth. “Wh-what was that!”

  
“You’re too resistant to me entering your mind,” Riel said sounding irritated.

“Why the fuck are you trying to get into mah head!” Cayrd wiped his face and managed to sit up.

“Because you’re in mine,” Riel said. Cayrd paused, then looked around again. He wasn’t in a real space? Just a mental one? Riel always said the ship was a psychic entity Cayrd never really understood what that meant.

“So, am Ah in a hallway in yer mind, or mine, or the ships?” Cayrd asked. Riel sighed.

“Either yours or the ships,” Riel said. “I’m standing over your body right now.”

Well, that was was unsettling to hear.

“Cayrd!” The sharp panic in Frias’ voice cut through the com perfectly. Cayrd swore. He didn’t want to worry Frias, not when he didn’t know what the hells was going on. “Let me go!” Frias demanded.

“Fuck he’s strong,” Riel said. Cayrd smirked. Frias’ species looked all plump and pretty, but they were powerhouses of strength. “For Fuck sake calm down!” Riel roared. “That’s an order!”

“What’s happened?” Frias asked softer now.

“Can he hear me?” Cayrd asked, figuring the only reason he could hear Frias was because Riel was there.

“No,” Riel said. Cayrd swore. “Look, Roewing, I don’t want to move your body, but I can’t figure out what’s going on unless you let me in your mind.”

  
Cayrd couldn’t think what he was doing to actively keep the other commander out, other than he hated having things screw with his mind. He looked at the com again. Riel said Cayrd was in his mind, even if he was just using the com. He had an idea.

  
“Hang on, Ahm gonna put ya on screen.” Cayrd flicked the little video screen on and the pasty gray bear face of Riel came on the screen. Riel looked co fused again, then blinked.

“Your mind is too literal.” Riel looked irritated. “Pan me around so I can see what’s going on.”

Cayrd panned the com around the hallway and Riel nodded in the screen.

“You’re in the ship,” Riel said. “It must have sensed your mind for some reason and wanted to look at you better.”

“What’s that mean fer me getting outta here?” Cayrd began to pace a little, needing to feel like he wasn’t just sitting here, waiting. He could hear the soft reassurances Frias was saying to him and it made him antsy to get back to his lover.

“Start walking, it wants to interact with you, and your mind is so strict its only option is to use images you understand.” Cayrd didn’t see how this was a bad thing. Keeping unwanted things out of his head was a daily goal.

With a resigned sigh he clipped his com to his shoulder and began walking down the hall. Lights flickered and dimmed as he got deeper. His lip curled as he didn’t like the look of it. He drew his blaster and proceeded more cautiously.

A figure appeared in the hall and Cayrd tried to focus on it. Under normal circumstances, his dark sight would allow for him to get some details, but it seemed the ship didn’t want him to see clearly.

  
“What is that?” Cayrd asked.

  
“Some archetype the ship is using to test you,” Riel said. “I looks like a giant cloud.”

“It’s a person,” Cayrd approached it aiming at its head as he got close enough. They both appeared to be right, as the figure was more like a cloud of humanoid features that only occasionally settled on a full form. “Hey!” Cayrd hollered at it. “Let me outta here!”

The form shifted again and tilted its head, mimicking an expression of interest. Cayrd had seen Riel do that before. It was a trait of shapeshifters that they just copied other lifeforms. He growled at it.

“Ah don’t wanna be in here, put me back in mah body,” He said again pointing with his blaster. An object materialized in the creatures hand, and it looked like Cayrd’s blaster. He frowned, his teeth bared.

“It’s reacting to you,” Riel warned.

Cayrd lowered his blaster, and the creature did the same. It shifted again looking less threating but still hadn’t settled on an appearance. Cayrd grumbled and tapped a foot, putting his blaster away. He was getting motion sick watching it and he was pretty done with this whole thing.

“Tell it ta let me out,” He grumbled at his com. “It understands ya right?”

“Kind of,” Riel grumbled. “But it seems to be ignoring me.”

The creature lifted an empty hand up to Cayrd, palm up, figured curled slightly like it wanted him to take its hand. Cayrd stepped back.

The creature stepped forward. Cayrd growled and the creature growled back, in a perfect copy of him. The creature held it’s hand out again and beckoned for Cayrd to take it.

He understood what it wanted. It wanted to touch him, and have a better mental connection to him. He growled again feeling his war teeth slide out behind his first row of teeth. The last thing he wanted was to touch the damn thing.

A door opened behind the creature, a thin stripe of light in the darkness down the hall. The creature gestured at the door with its other hand and made it clear if Cayrd wanted past it, he was going to have to take its hand.

“Don’t!” Riel shouted. “It’ll have a direct link to you!”

But Cayrd was over this shit. With a snarl, he leaped past the figure. It shifted as he passed, not moving as much as it flowed with Cayrd. A hand reached for him and Cayrd snapped his shark-sharp teeth down on the fingers, severing them and spitting them away. He raced, pulling the knife Frias had given him as an engagement gift from his him and cutting through the tendrils of the dark figure as they tried to wrap around him.

He got so close to the door he could almost smell the recycled air of the actual tart. Then the door snapped shut. Cayrd snarled and turned to face the racing form of the incoming figure.

“Roewing!” Riel called to him, but there was nothing he could do but slash and bite and punch. The shadow engulfed him and Cayrd smelled, of all things, burned toast. He felt like his brain was short-circuiting, then his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

***

Cayrd woke to the sound of beeping machines and the acrid smell of disinfectant.

“Are you awake this time?” The stern voice of the head medic asked him. Cayrd rolled his head to see the old curly hair medic looking at him. Cayrd tried to swallow around the tube in his throat, then nodded. Zan came over and took his vitals. “Give me a second and I’ll get the tube out of your mouth.”

Cayrd tried not to fight the tube as it breathed for him, then he gagged as it deflated and retracted. Zan looked down at him, a grim expression on his tired face.

  
“Tark and Esmie wanted to toss you into space,” Zan said. “Riel refused. I’m honestly surprised.” He shrugged. “But I assured them you weren’t dead and that I could revive you.”

Cayrd managed a smile. “Thanks,” He croaked. Zan shrugged again.

“Thank Frias,” Zan gestured to the sleeping plump man a chair beside him. “He wasn’t going to let us give up.” Cayrd swallowed something like emotion down. Zan smirked and walked off, nudging Frias as he went.

Frias blinked sleepily, then lunged forward to grab Cayrd’s hand. “Yer awake,” He said touching Cayrd’s face and hair.

“Yeah,” Cayrd rasped. “What happened?” Frias sniffed.

“Riel wouldn’t let me take ya back to med-bay right away. He said ya were outside of yer body, and if we moved ya, you might get stuck.” Cayrd frowned, not quite understanding. “You were cold and ya weren’t breathing. When we got ya here, Zan hooked ya up to all this and started monitoring yer brain activity. It was…” Frias shook his head. “I’ve never seen that before. He said ya were stroking out.”

That explained the toast. “How long, have Ah been out?”

“About three day-cycles.” Frias patted his hand. “Zan told us not ta worry. Said he could fix it.” Frias gave Cayrd a watery smile. Frias would have known Zan was just lying to give Frias hope. Frias was just as good of a medic as Zan was.

“Well then, that’s enough of a rest for me then,” Cayrd struggled to sit up and Frias shook his head. Cayrd knew he wasn’t leaving Medbay any time soon. Frias sat back down again trying to be dignified and Cayrd just patted the bed beside him. Frias climbed in snuggling up against him.

Cayrd sighed into Frias’ soft spiky pink hair. He couldn’t remember what had happened after the creature had swallowed him up. He had a feeling he didn’t want to remember either. He held Frias close, sharing body heat on the medbay cot, and hoping that would be enough to keep any bad dreams at bay.


End file.
